Post/Author/DateTime	Post
grifter100 01-09-06, 06:57 PM	I run an Eberron campaign for a few friends and thought I´d share their (mis)adventures with the rest of you. I´ll recount the happenings of our gaming sessions, but will change some details for purposes of style and flow of the story, and because a blow-by-blow recount would probably be rather dull. I´m not exactly an experienced writer, but still hope this will amuse and interest some of you. Possible inconsistencies with official material are either because I changed stuff on purpose or because I screwed up. ;) So, without further delay, I present for your entertainment: * The Black Hand, Book 1 - The Rise of Xelifos, Part 1: Under the Dragon Crown * The Heroes: Marshal Lucius “Blackhand” Tirlanh – a cyran sorcerer of no small power and leader to our merry band of adventurers Alberta ab´Pantalonh – a cyran spy with mysterious magical abilities Quinla “Sharpear” d´Lyrandar – a cyran bard who abandoned all ties to her former House Bloodclaw Havrok – a talenta halfling and veteran of the Last War in the services of Cyre The civilians: Heronk al´Ilish – the young, charismatic mayor of Fairwood Beshik – the mentally handicapped brother of Heronk Silvana – an elf traveling through Fairwood The Villains: Legbreaker – an ogre bent on robbing (or eating) the fine people of Fairwood Alterash – the leader of a sinister cult who has taken residence near Fairwood Grishn´kar Herkros´h – bodyguard to Alterash Steerpike - ??? * Prelude * “Hrrrmpff!” The ogre let out a guttural growl that shook the very foundations of the cave so that for a moment, Havrok thought that the rough, greyish stone of the bandits hide-out was sure to come crashing down on his head. Not that he would have cared. All he cared about right now was finally killing the being on whose massive shoulders he stood, kukri deep inbedded between its shoulderblades, eyes raging with fury, foam forming at the edges of his mouth, muscles tightened almost to the point of bursting: lesser (or rather wiser, perhaps) foes have been known to spontanously decide a “tactical retreat” was in order, or suddenly remembered to have a previous engagement of grave importence that they had forgotten about, when the battle reached the point where the halfling could no longer contain himself and let this other, darker voice in his head take control. “Kill!”, it screamed. “Maim!” “Destroy!” And the current battle had absolutely reached that point. For the ogre Legbreaker was far from weak. Nor particularily wise, for that matter. “What´s taking so long? Bring him down already!” came Lucius´ voice from the other end of the cave. “What´s taking so long?” Havrok barely heard the Marshal, who was holding off two of Legbreakers´ human flunkies with his quarterstaff. He had long run out of spells, and without them he wasn´t of much use in a fight (at least in Havrok´s opinion). Only the magical protection he cast around himself hours ago kept him from being bludgeoned to death. This would have been the most inopportune time for the spell to run out of power, but with the luck they had today, it would have surprised no one (except, perhaps, the two brutes he was fighting – but then, they looked somewhat bewildered that their blows didn´t appear to be doing much damage anyway). The ogre suddenly gave a great jerk and with another roar began shaking it´s shoulders again, this time managing to send Havrok crashing to the floor. Still, Jawbreaker had embedded his teeth deep in the ogre´s leg, was sure to lose grip rather sooner then later. The situation had certainly taken a turn for the worse in the last few minutes and things where looking grim: Alberta was lying very still on the floor, Quinla by her side, desperatly trying to make the motionless woman drink a healing potion; Lucius was trapped in a corner fighting two thugs whom on a normal day he would have taken out with a word and a wink of a finger; and worst of all, the rage boiling inside of Havrok was fading quickly, leaving behind a great tire that he knew he wouldn´t be able to fight off for long. But still, Bloodclaw Havrok of the Greenback Halflings knew that they had won this fight already. For he simply refused to die. At least, not like this, slain in some brelish backwater village, by some bandit-wannabe calling himself “Legbreaker”, of all the stupid names he had heard in his time. Havrok had survived the battle at Fort Zombie, where he had to wade through the animated corpses of his former allies, had survived elfish raids and aundairian airship assaults, and even the Day of Mourning itself. So far his luck had never run out. The possibility that he would die here, at the hands of this fool seemed so absurd that he gave a great, long laugh. This seemed to be the first thing that made Legbreaker truely furious. It threw off the Clawfoot dinosaur still clinging to its leg, gave a final great roar and came charging towards the halfling, swinging it´s mighty club high above its head. And just when Havrok thought that finally he would join his ancestors, that finally whatever fates bound him to this cruel world and had protected him for so long had abandoned him, he saw his own lance sticking out of the ogre´s chest, where he had plunged it only minutes ago. He jumped right at the charging behemoth with all the power he had left and grabbed at the finely crafted darkwood weapon, now covered in blood and gore. The two combatants clashed together with such force that the lance was almost driven out of the ogre again on its backside. Legbreaker gave a look of surprise and great pain, then broke down with a loud clash and was moving no more. The voice inside Havrok filled his head with laughter and screamed: “See! I will never let you die! Never! Never!” * The victory festivities in Fairwood where, for such a small town, quite spectacular. A great table was set up in the shade of some lovely acorns that was loaded with the finest food and drink the little village had to offer. A roasted pig was prepared over an open fire, there where cakes, the soft bread the region was famous for, all kinds of delicious fruits and honeyed wine. Fireworks that the blacksmith Grosh had brought with him from his last journey to Starilaskur where lit to the joy of the children and, most of all, Beshik, the simple but kind young man they had rescued from Legbreaker´s lair along with almost a dozen others. The smell of sweet honey and fresh flowers (cloves, perhaps, or maybe valley lilies) hung in the air and the evening sun went down in a victorious red light, leaving her spot in Syberis unwillingly to the moons. Quinla sung a song of victory and joy she had learned from a Kech Volaar in the war. The listeners did not understand a word of the strange, goblinoid tongue, but such was the magic of her song that in their hearts, they felt courage and joy. The young mayor, Heronk, gave a speech to honor the heroes of Fairwood in his usual pleasant, fair voice: “There are people in this world, regular people, like you and I, yes, you too, my dear brother…“ he interrupted himself when Beshik had looked up at him with big, agog eyes “…who live honest lives and work to the best of their abilities to provide a good life to their families, friends and kinsmen. And this is a good life, let me tell you!” The crowd gave a small round of applause at that. “But then there are those who are…” the people around Quinla looked up anxiously as Heronk was seemingly thinking hard on finding precisely the right word to use “…extraordinary. Yes, people who make it their life´s mission to help others, who would risk their own life for that of another. People who are fearless in a way that we shall never know. People like these.” He pointed at Havrok and Alberta, who where seated at his left and Quinla and Lucius, seated at his right, and thundering applause broke out. Of course, Heronk was talking complete hogwash and knew it too: where it not for the 200 dragons offered in hard coin, Quinla and her companions wouldn´t have come here. It´s not that they where particularily greedy or ruthless, but times where hard, especially for a bunch of mourners styling themselves adventurers, taking away business from established enterprises and even the Dragonmarked Houses. But Quinla could certainly see why these people had made Heronk their mayor now: in spite of his young age, he was not only attractive in a common way, but also possessed a certain something that seemed to make him someone people wanted to lead. He reminded her a little bit of Denlam… And apparently, he wasn´t spoken for yet…maybe, if the wine did it´s job well, Quinla would pay him a visit later. She was asked for another song and chose a sad one about an elf queen who became enthralled by Syberis and left Eberron for him. It was meant to enthrall the minds of those who heard it and fill their hearts with a sad joy…not to enthrall her own head and fill it with fog…the wine seemed to be doing a different job altogether…for Quinla suddenly felt very hot and dizzy…the people around her seemed to melt together and then flow out again…she saw Havrok stumbling from his seat, Lucius looking around in a confused but somehow amused manner, Alberta lying slumped over the table…and with that, she felt her own head hitting the hard, oaken wood of the banquet table…she thought she heard a high pitched, cruel laughter ringing out somewhere in the back of her mind…then nothing… * And with that, our adventure begins. If there´s interest, I´ll post more. Questions and praise are more than welcome, but if you want to tell me how much I suck…well, you can go ahead also, better to vent that anger on me then the cat or the toaster or something. ;) David
Soloran 01-09-06, 07:49 PM	I'm surprised no one has posted yet. This is a very good piece of prose and I look forward to hearing more about our heroes. Keep up the good work. :D